> He did it by embracing financialization. GE was an industrial company when he took over — making most of its money selling appliances, light bulbs, power tur

> He did it by embracing financialization. GE was an industrial company when he took over — making most of its money selling appliances, light bulbs, power turbines and jet engines. By the time he retired, the company derived much of its profit from GE Capital, which was essentially a giant unregulated bank. Welch called it 'the blob' — it was an amorphous, ever-changing collection of financial assets, capable of delivering whatever adjustments were most advantageous to the parent company in a moment’s notice. The finance division became GE's center of gravity, ultimately accounting for 40 percent of its revenue and 60 percent of its profit. With so much money coursing through the finance division, Welch used it to his advantage, shifting zeros throughout a sprawling international web of subsidiaries, and extracting whatever he needed to meet or beat analysts’ estimates for nearly 80 quarters in a row, an unprecedented run. It was what one influential analyst called 'earnings on demand.' "There was very little transparency," said Beth Comstock, a longtime GE marketing executive. "GE had a financial army that was able to close the quarter the way we’d said we would." And Welch pursued his quest to inflate GE's valuation with a gusher of share buybacks and dividends that fundamentally altered expectations about who is entitled to the riches of this land. After decades when corporations proudly talked about how much they were spending on payrolls, research and development, and even taxes, Welch made it clear that if companies wanted to succeed on Wall Street, they ought to put investors first. The article explains this apparent contradiction. His sole objective was to increase share price at any cost, including derailing GE's core business and practicing all sorts of financial tricks. And the company collapsed after his exit, it is now worth less than before Welch took over. This is not what success looks like to me, even purely as a businessman.